My Creative Workbook

Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman

Leaf snippet gift cube

It is not easy to find a place that can recycle polystyrene or Styrofoam, mostly because it is almost impossible to re-make it into high quality polystyrene. But it is really easy to find uses for the sheets you receive as packaging. Don't trash it. Re-purpose it!

You can either pin or glue the plant material to the Styrofoam shape. Pinning is best if you want to re-use the shape.

Styrofoam is also ideal if you want the design to float on water.

Cut a gift cube shape from Styrofoam

Cut a gift cube shape from Styrofoam

It doesnt need to be exact any off-cut will do

It doesnt need to be exact any off-cut will do

Cut the leaf snippets.

Cut the leaf snippets.

Glue the leaf snippets to the Styrofoam cube.

Glue the leaf snippets to the Styrofoam cube.

Smooth down each snippet to create a neat flat coverage.

Smooth down each snippet to create a neat flat coverage

Create a random pattern

Create a random pattern by overlapping the snippets to ensure the cube will still be neatly covered once the leaf snippets dry

Simply work over any imperfections in the Styrofoam cube

Simply work over any imperfections in the Styrofoam cube

Make sure you generously overlap the edges

Make sure you generously overlap the edges, the leaf snippets will shrink as it dries and no Styrofoam should show

Gift cube done and ready to design with

Gift cube done and ready to design with

Every week I add a new design with related tutorials. Be sure to subscribe to receive an email notification with design inspiration.

Tutorials

30 August 2011 Removing Oasis Floral Adhesive glue spills

The finish of every design should be flawless. Make sure there are no bits of glue visible in your design by carefully removing all traces of spills.

19 June 2012 Up-cycle Styrofoam packaging to create a low pave design

Polystyrene or Styrofoam makers ideal shapes to pin or glue plant material to.

8 October 2012 Mikado Reed Line-up

Creating a good quality armature makes it effortless for you to replace flowers, as they fade, with fresh blooms for an ever changing and long lasting floral design.

21 August 2012 Wool finish Styrofoam base

Fast and easy way to create a base to rest a few vases or bottles on.

25 September 2013 Adding beads into a design

I wanted my beads to softly float above my snowball posy. If I glued the beads to some of the flowers it would just disappear in the mass of twigs and flowers.

Related Designs

25 December 2013 A gift for gifting

Christmas gift design

19 December 2018 Oh Florist-tree

Craft an Eucalyptus Christmas tree

25 December 2019 Wishing you a Light Touched Christmas

A naturally fragrant, star shaped gift box basket. Merry Christmas to you.

9 November 2022 All Pumpkind Out

A physalis husk pumpkin to celebrate the last bright rays of Autumn.

7 December 2022 Making spirits bright

A twig sleigh... to collect your twig Christmas tree, of course!